


Aegon the Unbroken

by cellorocket



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate History, Angst, Arranged Marriage, Drama, Eventual Romance, F/M, Gen, Slice of Life, Slow Burn, So much angst, i will fight maester gyldayn in hell with my bare hands, some fluff maybe??, woobies on parade
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-25
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-11-27 06:37:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18191060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cellorocket/pseuds/cellorocket
Summary: He watched them from behind an implacable mask, his features flat and frozen, eyes distant. In want of a response, those murderers and betrayers cobbled together some meaning from his silence to satisfy their need, and he too was satisfied. He would give them nothing; he owed them nothing. They would knownothing. || the truth, from a cipher's point of view





	Aegon the Unbroken

_Part I: A Pale Shadow_  
  
  
“Aegon! Viserys!” A voice hissed in the darkness; a voice Aegon knew and loved well, though tonight there was a tremor in it, a catch at his throat, as if he were a breath away from crying. Aegon’s gut turned sour, even before he opened his eyes; he lurched up and shaded his eyes against the sudden blinding light. A shaking lamp, in the hand of his elder brother.

“Go away,” Viserys mumbled sleepily, curling deeper into his nest of blankets.

“Ser Erryk and Ser Arryk are fighting,” Joffrey said, with a desperate sort of finality, and Aegon saw his brows twitching low, nearly stitched together. He was gone before anyone could think to clarify such an astounding pronouncement, the door pounding shut behind him, and the room was cloaked in darkness once more.

The silence was ringing, uncomfortable. “Do you think he meant it?” Viserys whispered as he crawled to Aegon’s side, suddenly alert.

Aegon was silent. Only a year ago, such a thing would have seemed impossible; the twins were like two arms of the same body, working in perfect synchronization, so flawlessly mirrored that it was impossible to differentiate between them. Sometimes, when it was late and the adults were all deep into their cups, his father Prince Daemon would make a rude game of it, who was who. No one ever got it right.

“I think he might have,” Aegon whispered finally. Viserys blinked, a soundless decision made, and the boys surged to their feet at the same time, scrambling for tunics and the outer layers, stumbling in their haste as they attempted to pull well-worn boots onto their feet. Aegon was out the door first, Viserys hot on his heels.

They sprinted through the damp hallways and onto the ramparts. A fierce wind pushed them back toward the doors, as if the breath of some stubborn old god sought to harry the presumptuous mortals on its island. A gale was coming, Aegon thought, as the wind dragged tears from their squinting eyes. No rain had broken through the steel-bellied bottom of the sky, but a thundercloud loomed ominously on the horizon, as if to threaten what was to come. Loud voices boomed out of the training yard, and shouts and screams of steel on steel. By then they had caught up to Joff, and the three of them made their last steps up to the training galley, skidding to a stop, clutching the battlements so hard Aegon knew he would have stone impressions upon his palms the next morning.

Just enough light leaked from the edge of the horizon to see every detail, for the training yard and main steps were bathed in patches of shadow, shrouded by the oncoming storm. On the higher step stood a knight clad all in white, the white of the Kingsguard, his armor turned pearlescent by the storm-tossed hour. His magnificent sword was drawn, stained with blood, and his face was ugly with hatred. Three guards lay dead at his feet.

His mirror – no, not a reflection, not this time – Ser Erryk wore no hatred or fury on that identical face; he was desolate, exhausted. Instead of plate, he wore padded leather, and his sword hung loosely in his hand, as if he longed to drop it. “You do not lack for daring, little brother,” said Ser Erryk, bringing his sword slowly to bear. “But this madness ends here. Lay down your sword before our Queen’s feet, and she shall be merciful.”

“Will she? Why should any man that harridan attributes to her misfortune be allowed such a mercy?” Ser Arryk laughed sourly.

“You will be allowed to take the black, if you wish it, and serve the Night’s Watch with honor.”

“Mm, honor. I spit on your honor.”

Ser Erryk’s mouth tightened, and he took a step forward, herding Ser Arryk’s back to the wall. “I hadn’t known you fond of japes.”

Ser Arryk turned his sword, almost lazily. The point of the pommel pressed into his palm, hard enough that Aegon was certain he had drawn his own blood. “This whole procession is a jape. Shall we talk of your master ordering the murder of a six-year old boy?” The look in his eye had become truly wild, then; a feral creature straining at its bonds. “Or one of my sworn charges spilling innocent blood, on many and more occasion. What difference does it make, truly?” What’s left of what we were?”

“Our vows.”

“Piss on them, and you.”

Viserys clung to Aegon’s arm so tightly that it had gone numb. “Don’t let him hurt Ser Erryk,” he pleaded. Would that Aegon could; even if he had been their age, none could match their prowess in arms. They were living legends, two men of a dying breed, about to kill each other.

Aegon clutched the battlements, sick to his stomach, yet unable to look away.

“I see my brother standing before me, looking as he has always done,” Ser Erryk said in a cold voice, advancing, “but through his lips I hear the words of a traitor.”

Ser Arryk slid away, a motion so expert it took Aegon’s breath away. “You speak to me of treason? You! Who tucked tail like a shamed dog and rolled over for Queen Cunt. You abandoned m – your brothers and your liege for that slut.” Aegon felt a stab of anger at the curses; the people who didn’t like his mother were always, always, attacking her, for what reasons Aegon didn’t know, but he knew her accusers as his lifelong enemies; he did not forget a grudge. She’d be happier if they left her alone, and for that he hated them.

“She is the rightful heir,” Ser Erryk said, stubbornly ignoring the tirade, pressing close. “Chosen by her father, King Viserys, and celebrated all throughout King’s Landing as his successor. And a far better ruler than that lecherous oaf and the pack of lickspittles and vipers that ooze courtesies for his favor.”

“Your prattling bores me,” said Ser Arryk, rolling his shoulders in preparation for a charge. “And you can’t know how much I hate looking at that face. Come, see if we can make a game of it.”

For all their matched skill, it was a quick and brutal scrap. Swords caught and clashed, drawing sparks like fireflies blinking in the night. No one was faster than Ser Erryk – his strikes were lightning, so quickly there and gone that only the after-image remained. But they had not named Ser Arryk to the Kingsguard for nothing. Aegon thought with satisfaction when his knight struck Ser Arryk’s torso, at the exact gap between plates, that the fight might end in their champion’s favor, but gasped when Arryk charged through the maneuver to swipe his sword across the back Ser Erryk’s leg. Viserys screamed, then.

It was chance, a fluke of luck that none could explain, that made Ser Arryk look up at the source of the sound – the instincts of the Kingsguard, ever watchful, ever aware of their surroundings – but Ser Erryk was not distracted by the commotion; his face twisted in agony, he spun and cut upward, taking Arryk’s arm off at the shoulder, just as Ser Arryk realized his mistake. His hand went to the hilt of a dagger, and in an instant Aegon knew what he meant to do. “His hands!” he shouted desperately.

Ser Arryk gasped at the spurting wound, blood turned black by the night, and made a few huffing, gurgling sounds. His fogging eyes lifted up to the sky, just as a patch of cloud slid away, revealing the moon. “Fuck you, Erryk,” he wheezed, then slammed the dagger up into his brother’s side with so much force that the hilt broke skin. With a horrible wheeze, Ser Erryk lurched away before Arryk could rip it out, to bleed him to death.

By then, a contingent of guards had come rushing into the enclosure, but they found only a half-dozen terrified smallfolk, hiding in the stables, a trio of blank eyed boys standing over the devastation, and two knights, one dead, one alive. The one that still drew breath looked at the sky, as his brother had done. The wispy moon drifted away, into the heavy clouds. Once again, they were swallowed by darkness.

~

“Maester Gerardys says Ser Erryk is going to die soon,” Joff said dully, picking at a thread in his fine doublet so hard that it frayed against his wrist. A spot of blood bloomed on his lip, from here he’d bitten it through. His nut-brown hair was tousled by the wind.

Aegon lowered his head and chewed at his thumbnail, heartsick. He owed it to the true knight to send him on his way knowing that he had protected his charges and kept his vows, but that would be slim comfort, as it was his own hand that ripped the life from his little brother. They said that there was no man so accursed as a kinslayer; would it matter to the gods, that it had been done in defense of the defenseless? Aegon didn’t know. He suspected even the septons didn’t know, though they might make vague noises as if they did.

He stood suddenly, wiping his sweaty hands on his trousers. “I’ll see him.”

Viserys leapt to his feet too, scrambling after Aegon’s deliberate pace through the damp halls of Dragonstone. It always seemed to be raining here, even on days where the sun peeked through a heavy veil of clouds, just enough to tease before drifting away. There was never enough sun to dry the place out; water clung intimately to the stone.

“I’m sad for him,” Viserys said as he caught up to Aegon.

“Me, too.”

“He had to fight the person he loved best in the whole entire world, and kill him, because otherwise he’d have hurt us, and his duty was to keep us safe. It’s sad.”

“You’re right,” Aegon said, squeezing Viserys’ hand.

“I could never do that to you,” Viserys said, looking up at Aegon, and his eyes were watery and red. “I’d rather die than do that.”

Aegon’s throat had grown thick. “It’ll never come to that, I promise.” He gave Viserys’ hand another squeeze, forceful this time. 

“But what if I do something so wrong you have no choice?”

Aegon was taken aback for a moment; he didn’t realize Viserys had been thinking of it in those terms, where he would be the cause of misfortune, the antagonist to defeat. His regard for Aegon was that absolute; the realization of this both warmed and shamed Aegon.

“Even then,” he said solemnly. “Your side is my side.”

They were being a little sentimental, he knew, but it wasn’t every day you saw the epitome of brotherhood scrapping in the mud and hurling curses like a pair of feral dogs, ripping each other’s throats out. Normally, he and his younger brother were joined at the hip, sharing their lessons and meals, even the same chambers, but it was different today, desperate attachment borne by a brush with the ugliness of the world, and its utter disinterest in justice or mercy. Aegon thought of the harrowed, haunted look in Ser Arryk’s eyes and shivered.

The wooden door to the maester’s chambers was soggy and green-smelling, a consequence of the worst rainy season in Aegon’s memory. But when they pushed inside the dimly lit tower, a gust of warm, spiced air rushed to meet them. Despite everything, a little smile tugged at the corners of Aegon’s mouth. He loved the maester’s tower best of all other places on Dragonstone: it was always warm and dry, smelling of candles and belladonna and thyme and whatever else Maester Gerardys had in his pockets that day; there were stacks of books as high as the ceiling and tables with yellowing maps strewn across, illustrating places far and wide, some of which had never been seen by living eyes; and above them all, the rookery, where two dozen ravens chattered and quorked, fluttering from one perch to another.

Usually Maester Gerardys slept in the bed in the corner under the stair, but tonight he had turned it into a triage. They saw Ser Erryk there, flushed and fevered, muttering to the ceiling. The maester had peeled his undershirt away, revealing an angry, dark-red gash above his hip, pulsing blackened blood with each faltering heartbeat. The maester had been in the process of cleaning the wound again and changing the befouled bandages when the boys intruded. “You both shouldn’t be here,” Maester Gerardys chided gently as he labored to his feet.

“We just wanted …” Aegon trailed off, shoulders curling. He had just wanted to help, but there was no helping here; he should have known even when they lifted Ser Erryk out of the mud. Despite the smell and the blood, so much blood, more than he thought a person could hold -- he had kept his gorge down, to his pride; he would be a lord someday, and must learn a lord’s example. “It’s our fault he got hurt.”

"Of course it wasn't," Maester Geradys said, his kindly face heavy with care and concern. 

Viserys dashed across the room to kneel at Erryk’s bedside, but Aegon stayed behind to talk to the maester. “I’m afraid he won’t last the night,” the master said, his head bowing in apology. “The knife struck the bowel.”

Aegon had feared so, but he hadn’t wanted to say anything about it to Viserys, whose capacity for hope was the only brightness that seemed to exist in the world anymore. It was something to be protected by every measure of resolve.

“It wasn’t … supposed to be like this,” Ser Erryk whispered to no one. Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes, making salty tracks down his bloodied face. “He was supposed to be true.” His voice broke. “Damn him. Damn him …”

“You did protect us,” Aegon urged. “He would have found us and killed us, or mother, or someone, if you hadn’t come upon him first. You saved all of us. You did your duty.”

Ser Erryk shook his head, his cheeks shiny with tears, now; his voice had a fevered tremble. “What are we, butchers in -- white cloaks, to be sent out as assassins when needed? Killing children in their beds … gods, no. That’s not the reason I swore my life to the Queen, to the Iron Throne. We –” he choked, blood bubbling onto his cracked lips. “We’re supposed … to be b-“

“Be still,” said Maester Gerardys, dabbing the wound with a foul smelling mixture.

Aegon’s blood froze, and the bottom dropped out of his stomach. At first, he had assumed the story had been some gibe by Ser Arryk to rattle his brother and all the rest listening in fear, but knowing that it could be true, that his parents and their whole council ordered the execution of one of his cousins, as retribution for his brother’s murder, chilled him to the bone. His gut twisted so violently he feared he might be ill.

He had always known that his mother and Jace had decided to send him and Viserys away to Essos because of Luce’s death, but now their decision took another, darker dimension; it was a calculated maneuver, to prevent their enemies from inflicting similar retribution upon them.

He couldn’t properly hate Aemond and his mother for Luce’s murder anymore, and that made him feel somehow a traitor, as though only a true ally would ignore all attempts to manipulate sympathy. A headache pinched his temples, and he groped for the wall to catch his balance. He wanted to outrun these realizations, and the dying knight before him, retreat into some safer place where none such concerns could touch him, or anyone.

“You need to rest,” Viserys was saying, gently patting Ser Erryk’s arm. “You’ll never heal if you’re upset all the time.”

Aegon’s heart twisted. He didn’t know how to tell his little brother that Ser Arryk’s dagger had been well placed, and Ser Erryk wouldn’t last much longer. Even so, the dying knight gave his young prince a brave smile. “I will do as you say.”

Viserys patted the battered knight on the shoulder this time, fussed with a lock of hair crusted with dried blood. “We’ll come read stories to you after our lessons tomorrow, I promise.”

Aegon couldn’t stand it; he was going to start sobbing if he didn’t get out of there immediately. “Come on, Viserys,” he said, swiping at his eyes and grabbing Viserys’ wrist. “Let Ser Erryk rest, just like you said.”

~

When they returned to their quarters, Joff was waiting for them, propped awkwardly against the open window and pulling hard from a half-empty bottle. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and waved them inside as Aegon shut the door behind them.

“Joff,” said Aegon, disapproval coloring his tone.

“Oh, leave me alone. You’re not going to tell Mother, are you?”

Aegon scowled. He wouldn’t, of course, and Joff knew it. She had enough on her mind; it was horrible enough to lose one child over an entire lifetime, but two in the span of a month was too cruel to consider. She was still weak from her miscarriage, and that wasn't even counting the war, and everything they had done for the throne, everything, and everyone, they had sacrificed. From their storm-blasted island off the coast of Westeros, to a sheltered child it had seemed so far away, happening in another world, but that had been before Aemond slew their brother at Storm's End, and Ser Erryk and Ser Arryk killed each other in their training yard.

Joff drained the bottle and let it slip from his fingers, and it clattered onto the floor and rolled crookedly to the wall. “You tell him he’s a big hero or something?” he slurred, lurching away from Aegon's reaching hand.  
  
“He is a hero,” Viserys argued, his voice trembling. He clutched his dragon's egg to his chest, chin tucking down over it. “You better tell him so, too.”  
  
Joff shook his head, turning away from them and back toward the open window, where beyond the stirrings of a gale tossed the rock-slashed waves.  
  
“Joff, would you close the window?”  
  
He said nothing for a long while. At first Aegon feared he meant to climb onto the ledge and leap from that great height, but instead he turned back to face them, and to Aegon’s surprise he saw his eyes were wet with tears. “I miss Luce,” he said miserably, a sob catching in his throat.

Viserys started crying, burying his face in his knees. This was exactly what Aegon was afraid of, that barely healed wound, so close to the surface. “Joff, please,” Aegon begged.

“I do … I think about how he’d be, today. What he’d think of today.” Joff sniffed, wiped his nose with his free hand. “Maybe even he could have stopped them from fighting …”

“Stop it.” Aegon’s voice was high and rough. “Enough.”

Joff’s expression crumpled. “I can’t help it, okay? I miss him. He was supposed to get married to that girl, I don’t remember – and -- “

“Joff,” Aegon said, moving forward and perching beside Joff to take his arm. He had to keep his voice steady, now. “He wouldn’t want for you to do this.”

But Joff didn’t seem to hear him. His expression had gone dark as a thundercloud, fixed to some point over Aegon’s shoulder. “I’ll kill him for what he’s done.”

"What?" 

"Aemond." Joff's lips pulled into a snarl. "I'll kill him, I swear it." 

“Slit his throat,” Viserys put in, his expression savage.

“Drive my sword straight through his other eye.”

That was the last straw. Aegon sat up and snatched the empty bottle off the ground before Joff could kick it again. “You two need to stop it. You can’t do anything about it right now other than make yourselves even more upset. Joff, stop – put down the other – yes, put it down. You’re going to make yourself sick. Viserys, get back in bed.” Sniffling, Viserys obeyed, pulling the covers around him so only his puffy face peeked out.

Aegon turned the full force of his scrutiny on Joff. He was nine and Joff eleven, but Joff was stinking drunk and tottering clumsily around their room, and Aegon had the full command of his faculties, combined with a iron reserve that had not known yesterday. “Joff, if you're going to stay with us tonight, you have to be quiet and go to sleep, or I'll kick you out and you can spend a cold, wet night proselytizing to the guards, your choice.”

Joff gave him a sullen look, made even more miserable by his red eyes. “You’re a cold fish, Aegon. A real shrew.”

"Maybe so." Aegon turned his back on them and shrugged out of his salt-stiffened tunic, groping for a clean under-shirt; he was tired of keeping what he felt tightly wound and buried beneath his heart, and his brothers knew him too well, loved him too much; they would see the truth of that on his face, and that was the last thing he wanted.

~

  
Joff fell asleep in under ten minutes, aided largely by the copious quantities of alcohol he'd consumed, but Viserys was harder to calm. Every now and then he’d ask a question in a small voice, something easily answered, as if testing to see if he had already been permanently abandoned. “Aegon?” he asked, now. A little hand fisted in Aegon's loose sleeve.

"Hm?"

"Do you remember mother's birthday feast, last year?" 

"Not really ... why?" 

Viserys was quiet for a long moment, chewing his lip. "Ser Arryk played that game with us, the true or false game, where he'd say something outlandish and we'd have to guess whether it was true or not." 

Aegon said nothing.

"Ser Erryk laughed and said they could never really play that game, even when they were younger, because they knew everything about each other. And you could just tell he wasn't exaggerating, it was true. Do you think that made it harder to fight him, or easier?" 

Aegon closed his eyes. He didn't want to remember this. Every kind memory of them was tainted by how it ended, under the storm-furrowed sky, bleeding out in the mud; by how had come to pass that someone they loved could say such hateful things. They were both dead now, in the most horrible way possible, and it didn't do any good to ruminate. Nor to consider that a shadow of fear lived behind each recollection; that one day it might come to such shattering terms with his own brothers. He would rather die than survive such a thing. 

Viserys seemed to sense this, for he let the subject go. "Aegon?"

“Hm?”

“Where are we going? Next week, on the ship.”

Aegon almost smiled. Viserys knew quite well where they were going, but wanted to be reassured by the anticipation. “We’re going to Pentos, to stay with the Prince. Jace arranged all of it.”

“What’s the Prince like?” Fitting that Viserys had more interest in the personal than the place; he was always asking about the lords and ladies that drifted through Dragonstone, the dignitaries, even the servants and smallfolk. He found everyone fascinating. 

“They say he is wise and just,” Aegon said in an affected hush. “A fine example, peerless warrior and keen scholar all at once.”

“Hm,” Viserys said, brows furrowed; not entirely convinced.

Aegon groped for another topic that might catch Viserys’ eager attention. “And just a little way north is Braavos.”

“Braavos …” Viserys echoed, clutching his dragon egg to his chest. "Will he take us there?"

"He might, especially if you ask." 

Viserys processed this slowly. 

“It’s a city of mummers and masks,” Aegon said in a hushed voice, spreading his hands as if to shape the scene itself. Viserys was only seven, and still easy to impress. “A city of prowling bravos in garishly-colored silks, who wield wicked-shaped steel and duel to the death over the slightest insult.”

“What kind of slight insult?”

Aegon didn’t have think for a long time. “They may take grave offense over the colors of your doublet, as you are not allowed to wear that color belonging to their group. I always thought that was silly, don’t you? Someone might get the notion that they’re sick of all the purple-plumed bravos killing people in their business –well now they have an identifying color from which to begin their investigation.”

“Are many of them caught?

“Of course not. This is Braavos, you know.”

"How do you know what it's like?" 

"Well, I --" He didn't really. "I've heard Father talk about it." 

"Has he been there?"

"He must have. He could have been lying, I suppose, but why would he lie about something like that?" 

"Because it amused him," Viserys said immediately, with so much flat certainty that it chilled Aegon to his bones; he couldn't have begun to explain why. 

“I’m glad we’re leaving,” Viserys said after a long moment, tracing whorls on the shell of his dragon egg. “I don’t want to see anyone else we know die.”

“Me, either,” Aegon whispered. He was overcome with the sudden impulse to embrace Viserys, but he knew his brother would only wiggle away with a scowl, jaw jutting out-- he would be a man grown, soon, and was too old for such comfort now. But with a roll of his eyes, Viserys extended his finger, for Aegon to link with his own.

It wouldn’t be so bad going to a strange place if they were together. If Aegon really put his mind to it, he could forget the war in Westeros and pretend they were on holiday, extended guests of honor in the Prince of Pentos’ gilded halls. Tasked to study arms, a half dozen tongues, and the centuries upon centuries of history baked into each brick and stone. He and Viserys would duck their tutors every now and then, and spend the afternoons racing through the wide streets, dodging palanquins and carts and an indolently milling crowd, browsing each bazaar and wares in more colors than he’d ever seen. In the evenings they would beg the indulgence of their host; they were young, you see, and Pentos was wide. Things were slower and brighter in Essos, his father said; civilization had existed far longer. And south, further south, on the edges of the continent, were the smoldering ruins of their ancestral home, blighted beyond recovery. Aegon thought about it as he drifted off to sleep, Viserys’ sleep-slow breathing beside him; what those thousand spires must have looked like at twilight, with the shadow of dragons against the clouds.

**Author's Note:**

> I feel should begin this with a set of explanations.  
> 1\. I was incredibly frustrated by hearing this story from one if not two or three highly biased (and at times just unpleasant) povs. I wanted to write in the subject’s head, no salacious rumors, no winking behind hands coy bullshit, no Maester Gyldayn going on about how hot that 6 year old looks, just what (I think) happened.  
> 2\. I decided to write this fic after the I concluded that Aegon, rather than being an altogether emotionless and miserable person, took his experiences in childhood and adolescence as reason to guard anything he felt was vulnerable in himself against general perception. Instead of hiding behind a mask of courtesy, he hid behind a mask of cold indifference. He was shown, repeatedly, that most people would happily murder or betray him, so he erred on the side of caution.  
> 3\. I was struck particularly by the fact that nearly everyone around Aegon wrote off his extensive trauma and depression as ‘sullenness’ ‘pouting’, essentially treating his reaction to intense trauma like a character defect. It’s not as if these mindsets are stuck in fiction or the past either. And I dislike the conclusion that having these traumas and illnesses makes a person broken –so the fact that Aegon, despite his struggles, was a just and 'able' administrator with his brother as Hand, I think that means something. That deserves to be acknowledged. He carried many lifetimes of sorrow on his shoulders, and still accomplished his vision for the realm – full bellies and dancing bears. He was terrified and traumatized by dragons during the Dance, yet overcame his fear and tried to keep them from dying out. All of this is so frustrating to me that I have to tell his side of the story, from his perspective!  
> 4\. To everyone who has read this far, thank you very much for reading!


End file.
